


Unnatural

by dustnik



Category: The Beatles
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4333329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustnik/pseuds/dustnik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>John’s Aunt Mimi witnesses something she wishes she hadn’t.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unnatural

It wasn’t right, John spending all his time with that younger boy from the other side of town, that Paul McCartney as he called himself. And Mimi Smith was a woman who knew right from wrong. Ever since the two teens first met that day at the Woolton village fête, they had become inseparable. Mimi shuddered, remembering the sight of John and his hooligan friends standing on that makeshift stage. What must their neighbors have thought, seeing her nephew up there dressed like a Teddy Boy and playing that dreadful music? Sometimes it seemed that John went out of his way to embarrass her. And now he was going around with a boy from the council houses. John always seemed to gravitate to the lowest class of people.

“Aunt Mimi, have you seen me guitar? Paul will be here in a mo’, and I can’t find it anywhere.”

Mimi glanced up from the comfort of her favorite chair and watched her beloved nephew anxiously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “Well, if you’d wear your glasses like you’re supposed to, you might be able to see it.” Then more kindly, she added. “I put it out on the porch. If you must play it, you can go out there.”

John’s face brightened, and just then the bell rang. “It’s Paul.”

He hurried to open the door, and a smiling teenager appeared, a guitar slung carelessly across his back. “Hello, Mrs. Smith. How are you today?”

Mimi looked up this time to find a doe-eyed youngster staring down at her. Her brows knitted slightly, but she managed a slight smile. “I’m fine, thank you, Paul. Now why don’t you two go out to the porch?” She wasn’t taken in by the younger boy’s baby face and pleasant manners; she knew his type alright. He thought he could use his charm and good looks to make her forget his working-class background, but she wasn’t fooled, not for a second.

The two boys quickly escaped to the privacy of the porch, closing the door softly behind them. “I don’t think she likes me,” Paul bemoaned.

“Sure, she does,” John reassured him.

Paul shook his dark head. “Did you see the way she looked at me?”

“She always looks like that. ’Sides, yer Dad doesn’t much care for me either.” John leered playfully at the other boy. “He thinks I’m a bad influence, and I’ll corrupt you with me wicked ways.”

Paul laughed but couldn’t deny the truth of what John said. “I’ve written a new song, but it still needs a little work. Tell me what you think.” He broke into a simple melody, singing the words he had already written and humming the ones that he hadn’t.

John turned his full attention to the song and noted the quiet confidence of the younger boy singing it. Paul never seemed self-conscious when he sang. It was one of the things John liked best about him. They reworked the chorus and added a catchy “middle eight,” finishing the lyrics together.

“Another Lennon/McCartney original,” Paul proclaimed with a flourish, setting it down in the notebook he always carried.

John moved next to him in order to get a closer look. “You write ’em all down?”

“Yeah, why not?” Paul spoke defensively. “Someday when we’re famous, they’ll be worth a lot of money.”

“Lemme see then.” John snatched the notebook from his friend’s hand.

“Give it back!” Paul’s face took on a frightened appearance.

“What’s the matter, Macca? What else do you have in here?” John asked mischievously, quickly turning the pages. “What filthy, disgustin’ secrets are you hidin’ behind that sweet, innocent face of yers?”

Paul lunged for the notebook, but John held it out of reach, and his grasping fingers clutched only air. “Give it ’ere, Lennon! It’s mine.” He sounded desperate now and close to tears.

John flipped to the back and was startled to find a carefully detailed drawing of a handsome, young man, staring out from the page. “Who’s this?” he asked gruffly, unable to account for a sudden pang of jealousy.

Paul had turned a vivid shade of red, wriggling uncomfortably.

John studied the drawing intently with the critical eye of an artist. “It’s good, really good, but who’s it supposed to be?”

After a long pause, a soft voice replied, “It’s y-you, John.”

The older boy turned first to the blushing youth beside him and then back to the drawing. This couldn’t be him. “You’ve made me nose too small and me eyes too big. This looks like some Greek god, not fat, ugly John Lennon.”

Paul bit his bottom lip, staring at the floor. “Well, that’s what you look like to me anyroad—and you’re not fat and ugly.”

John felt an unexpected warmth flow through him unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He smiled shyly at the other boy, feeling suddenly, wonderfully, blissfully happy. “This calls for a little Elvis, son.” He broke into his rendition of _All Shook Up_ while Paul looked on appreciatively, an expression of exquisite relief showing clearly on his face.

Next it was Paul’s turn, and he chose _(Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear_ , which he had just learned from the radio. With John’s myopic eyesight, he could almost imagine that his partner _was_ Elvis, his greased-back hair painstakingly arranged in a perfect imitation of their idol.

From inside the sitting room, Mimi could hear the music floating in from the porch. Elvis Presley again. Why did everything with John have to be about Elvis? Still, the new one wasn’t too bad, and she supposed his little friend was doing a passable job of it. Her eyes shifted to the hands of the antique clock on the mantel. Nearly four o’clock. She strode purposefully across the room to call the boys inside for tea. The music had stopped now, and she could see the two of them plainly through a little window, their heads drawn close together, one dark and one fair. As she reached for the doorknob, she watched her nephew turn and place a tender kiss on the mouth of the younger boy.

Mimi’s blood went cold, and she collapsed against the wall, unable to move or even breathe. There she remained for a full minute, hidden from view from the pair on the porch. One word kept resounding in her head, over and over, becoming louder and louder. _Unnatural._ She managed to stagger back to her chair, her mind reeling from what she had just witnessed. How could this happen? He must have gotten it from his Lennon side as there was nothing like this with the Stanleys. Or was it her fault somehow? God knows, she did her best, but since her husband’s death, there was no male presence in John’s life. No, it was that other one, that urchin with his big eyes and easy smile. He must have coerced her dear nephew into this somehow. But deep down, she knew it wasn’t true. No one could ever make John do anything he didn’t want to do.

At that moment, the door was thrown open, and the boys came bounding in noisily. “We want our tea, Aunt Mimi.”

She stared at the pair, outwardly very different, yet somehow alike. They both looked flushed and excited, wearing identical grins on their faces. “Not today, John.”

“But Aunt Mimi, we’re starvin’,” John whined.

“I said, not today.” She added, “I have a sudden headache. Maybe it would be better if Paul went home now.”

John shrugged at his friend. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

Paul nodded. “I’m sorry you’re not feelin’ well, Mrs. Smith. Goodbye.” He left the way he came, his guitar across his back, and pedaled off on his bicycle.

Mimi took a deep breath. “John, please sit down. I want to talk to you about something.”

Lennon obeyed, knowing that he’d done something to displease his prickly aunt. He mentally ran through a list of his most recent escapades trying to deduce which one had somehow reached her ears.

Mimi sat very still, her dark eyes staring straight ahead. “I want you to stop seeing Paul.”

Whatever John expected, it wasn’t this. “Paul? Why?”

“He’s not our kind.”

John was dumbfounded. “But he’s me best mate. He’s in me group.”

Mimi sniffed. “Well, surely you can find another friend with a guitar.”

John bounced up, his raised voice trembling with anger. “There’s no one like Paul. You think he’s not as good as we are just because he doesn’t live in a big house or go to a fancy school. Well, you’re wrong about him.”

“John, please! Lower your voice, for heaven’s sake.”

“Well, me mum thinks he’s great,” John hissed. He knew that any negative comparison to her Bohemian sister always wounded his straight-laced aunt. He savored the look of pain that passed over her face as his arrow found its target.

But Mimi quickly recovered. “Yes, well perhaps she wouldn’t feel that way, if she knew what was going on between the two of you. Even Julia couldn’t condone that sort of thing.”

John hesitated, understanding beginning to wash over him. “W-what do you mean?”

Mimi looked up at the angular face of her nephew, no longer a boy, but not yet a man. “I saw what you were doing out there on the porch, you and that horrid McCartney person.”

Lennon paled but instinctively went on the defensive. “What do mean by spyin’ on us? You had no right.”

Mimi ignored his accusation. “I know what I saw, and it wasn’t decent. It wasn’t normal. It was— _unnatural_.” There was that word again.

John knew what she was implying, of course. He had heard her use that word once before when they inadvertently came across a couple of sailors standing a little too close together and touching each other a little too freely. It was spoken in a hushed tone, the same one used when referring to his long-absent father.

Now the word was careening around in John’s head as it had in Mimi’s earlier. _Unnatural._ He guessed it was unnatural to kiss another bloke, even if he was your best mate, but somehow it didn’t feel that way. Kissing Paul felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He awoke from his reverie to find Mimi rising from her chair. “So you’ll stop seeing Paul, and we’ll never speak of this again.”

“No.”

She turned to meet the defiant stare of her nephew.

“I won’t stop bloody seein’ him.”

“John, language.”

How could he explain what Paul meant to him? When he met McCartney, it was like finding all the missing pieces in himself. Paul had become as necessary to him as the food that he ate or the air that he breathed.

Mimi was unnerved by John’s vehemence. “Well, he’ll not be welcome here. I can tell you that.”

“Then I’ll leave. I’ll go to live with me mum.” It was a threat he’d used often during arguments with the no-nonsense Mimi.

“As if she’d have you. She can barely manage her own life, much less deal with you and your—your _boyfriend_.” She spat out the last word.

“Well, at least, she loves me. That’s more than I can say for you.”

Mimi collapsed weakly back into her chair. John could give as good as he got. Fighting back the tears, she asked. “How dare you speak to me like that? You know how much I care for you.”

John scoffed. “You don’t love _me_. You don’t even know me. You only love the idea of who you want me to be. Well, I like Paul, and he likes me, and if that makes us _unnatural_ in your closed little mind, then so be it.” He turned without waiting for a reply and stormed out, slamming the door behind him. He found himself walking in the direction of his mother’s house. She would understand and take his side. He found her outside with her young daughters, John’s half-sisters. In appearance, John did not favor her much except for the reddish tone to his light brown hair; auburn, she called it. But he had inherited her love of music and her free spirit.

Julia was always happy to see her eldest child but quickly realized that something was on his mind. She tactfully suggested a cup of tea. Leaving the girls to play outside, she and John passed through the sitting room to the tiny kitchen in the back. Her house was small and messy, very different from the tasteful, well-maintained home that John shared with Mimi, but somehow he always felt more comfortable here. When the tea was ready, Julia joined her son, already sitting at the table, glaring angrily into space. She knew whatever was bothering him must involve her very proper sister. “So what’s Mimi done this time?”

“It’s Paul. She says that I can’t invite him over anymore. She wants me to stop seein’ him.”

Julia was unable to hide the look of surprise on her childlike features. John often brought Paul around when Bobby was out, and they would all three play records and talk for hours. Paul was always polite and respectful. She wondered how anyone, even Mimi, could find fault with the poor, motherless McCartney boy. “Why would she say that?”

John looked down, his face blushing slightly. “She said that he’s ‘not our kind.’ ”

Julia well knew that her sister could be somewhat snobbish when dealing with those she perceived as beneath her. She also knew that John had always favored the friends that Mimi found most unsuitable. So this was nothing new. No, it must be something more. “Is that all?”

John fidgeted in his chair looking extremely uncomfortable now. “She saw me kiss him.”

Julia had known for some time that the two boys had a special relationship. She had perceived it in the shy smiles and the intimate touches that seemed to come so easily.

“She thinks we’re a couple of bloody queers, she does. She said that we were _unnatural_.”

Julia could well imagine her older sister’s distaste. Mimi doted on John, although she would never understand him.

“I told her that I was gonna live with you.” John looked over at her hopefully, appearing young and vulnerable.

“We’ve been through this before, John. There isn’t enough room here for you, and besides, you belong with Mimi.”

“But why do I belong with her?” John wheedled.

“It’s time to come home now, John.” The voice came from the woman who had entered the kitchen, unnoticed by either of them.

John turned toward his aunt, observing a frightened expression on her face that he’d never seen there before. He looked imploringly at his mother, but she remained strangely silent, sipping her tea. He rose in defeat, following Mimi out the door. They walked several blocks without speaking.

Finally, Mimi broke the silence. “I need to pick up some things at the market on the way home.” She paused, “I thought that tomorrow I would make your favorite dinner, and you might ask Paul to join us.” She continued to stare straight ahead, not meeting her nephew’s shocked gaze.

John studied her impassive face, smiled broadly, and wrapped his arm around the older woman. “I love you too.”


End file.
